Texas is officially in the midst of its second-worst drought on record.

National Weather Service meteorologist Victor Murphy said Tuesday that this year's drought has now surpassed one that ended in 1918 as the second-driest period in the state.

Texas' most severe overall drought remains one that persisted from 1950-1957. The state climatologist last week declared the current drought the state's most severe one-year drought on record.

Texas saw less than an inch of rain statewide in July, and more than 90 percent of the state already is in the two most extreme stages of drought. It has endured its driest 10 consecutive months on record.

A newly updated weather map shows the drought holding firm through at least October.

Our Community Serving Theirs

As a body of West Texans united to serve, we can and will change one Haitian community for the future.

Through the collaboration of
Breedlove Foods Inc., Operation Hope and New Vision Ministries all combined funds will be designated toward focused humanitarian aid.

September 20 - October 1

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took a livestock-industry probe to Colorado today, as part of an inquiry that may lead to new rules governing how Tyson Foods Inc., Cargill Inc. and other processors operate.

Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder met farmers, meatpackers and feedlot owners in Fort Collins in the fourth of five sessions centered around monopolies in agriculture. The meeting followed a Department of Agriculture proposal that would stop processors from selling livestock to each other and require them to justify their choice of one farmer supplier over another.

The USDA's June proposal came after the number of cattle and hog farms shrank by 55 percent since 1980 and the top four packers saw their control of boxed beef output rise to 80 percent from 36 percent.

What Steiner said to me during that first interview was blunt, depressing -- and struck me as having the ring of truth. Little did I know how true.

"Government and industry will habitually understate the volume of the spill and the impact, and they will overstate the effectiveness of the cleanup and their response," he told me at the time. "There's no such thing as an effective response. There's never been an effective response -- ever -- where more than 10 or 20 percent of the oil is ever recovered from the water.

"Most of the oil that goes into the water in a major spill stays there," he said. "And once the oil is in the water, the damage is done."

An extreme drought in the southeastern United States has fueled a bitter tri-state battle over dwindling water resources that pits man against mussels.

Millions of people in the state of Georgia fear their taps could run dry, while environmentalists in Florida say freshwater mollusks protected under the US Endangered Species Act risk dying off.

Pippin and Merry stayed with and guarded their owner, Gary Lorenz, almost a month until his body was found by a hunter Oct. 20 and the canines were returned home.

Each of the golden retrievers lost about nine pounds, but were otherwise in good medical condition, Lorenz's widow and daughter told The Mountain Mail Friday.

Lorenz disappeared Sept. 24 and the dogs were with him. Officials determined his death date was Sept. 29, making it at least three weeks after he died the dogs remained with their master.

Large areas of California have been devastated by wildfires fuelled by high winds and extremely dry conditions. The two largest blazes - named Witch and Harris - are to the north and south east of the city of San Diego. Use the map below to find out more.

The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years, experts say, and they may be just a prelude to many more such events in the future -- as vegetation grows heavier than usual and then ignites during prolonged drought periods.

Here's the thing about being overrun by fire: It is like being caught in a flash flood of flame. Winds flow through winding canyons and mountain passes like rivers, pushing forward unpredictable waves of superheated air that can sear your lungs and roast you even before the flames arrive. Especially in Southern California's extreme conditions, fire moves faster than any person can run, especially when it's roaring uphill. [...]

Firefighters try to learn from each death. Each disaster -- and each success -- leads to new training and rules about how to engage a fire. But despite what we've learned, and the constant attention to safety, 36 firefighters have been killed in California wildfires just since 1990.

Half a million Californians have been ordered to evacuate their homes and flee the spreading wildfires blazing across southern California Tuesday, US media reported.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the wind-driven infernos have destroyed some 700 houses and businesses and led authorities to urge some 500,000 people to leave their homes, mostly in the San Diego area in south-eastern California.

The San Diego NBC station is streaming video of the fires down there.

At a news conference shortly after 6 a.m., officials said fires had spread dramatically overnight, whipped by fierce Santa Ana winds. They said fire had jumped Interstate 15 at Lake Hodges and was burning in parts of Rancho Bernardo. Because of the explosive and unpredictable nature of the blazes, all residents living between Interstate 15 and Interstate 5 from Del Dios Highway in the north to Highway 56 in the south were told to begin evacuating.

"This fire is moving very quickly," San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said. "Watch TV, listen to the radio and have your car prepared to leave."

Scott Pelley did a report last night on 60 Min. that had a very interesting quote at the end. It was made by the man who is :

Tom Boatner, who after 30 years on the fire line, is now the chief of fire operations for the federal government.

Mr. Boater is America's #1 wild land fire fighter, consider this exchange between Scott Pelley, and our #1 fire fighter :

"You know, there are a lot of people who don't believe in climate change," Pelley remarks.

"You won't find them on the fire line in the American West anymore," Tom Boatner says. "'Cause we've had climate change beat into us over the last ten or fifteen years. We know what we're seeing, and we're dealing with a period of climate, in terms of temperature and humidity and drought that's different than anything people have seen in our lifetimes."

Mr. Boater is talking about something that I try to pay attention to , that being what people in the field are saying about how nature is changing as the temperatures go up. Pelley also interviewed Tom Swetnam of the University of Arizona who is one of the world's leading fire ecologists. He is the keeper of the University of Arizona's 9,000 year-old dendrology collection. Mr. Swetnam is talking about the western U.S. losing half of it's forests as these megafires burn at higher, and higher altitudes.

Here is the 60 Min. story :
Warming Climate Fuels Mega-Fires, Scott Pelley Reports From The American West's Fire Lines On The Rising Number Of Mega-Fires

On August 5th I posted a some of the quotes from people who are on the fire lines this year. From this and other countries, we see over and over again this phrase from fire fighters :
"We've never seen this before."

That article is here.

ATLANTA - With the South in the grip of an epic drought and one of its largest cities holding less than a 90-day supply of water, officials are scrambling to deal with the worst-case scenario: What if Atlanta's faucets do go dry?

So far, no real backup plan exists. There are no quick fixes among suggested solutions, which include piping water in from rivers in neighboring states, building more regional reservoirs, setting up a statewide recycling system, or even desalinating water from the Atlantic Ocean.

Atlanta has long relied on 38,000-acre Lake Lanier north of the city to supply its tap water. But as Georgia became one of the nation's fastest-growing states, its capital grew to more than 4.5 million people, and the '50s-era reservoir simply could not keep up.

"Atlanta is one of the largest metropolitan areas on one of the smallest watersheds in the country," says Jill Johnson of Georgia Conservation Voters. "As we've continued to grow, our demand has increased. So there are more people using more water than ever before. But the amount of water available to us in the watershed didn't change."

If Georgia orders watering restrictions in metro Atlanta beyond the current outdoor ban, it will be taking drought-fighting steps that not even arid Southern California or Las Vegas has had to make.

Oct. 14 Farmers and shoppers from New Jersey to Virginia have found summer and fall blurring when it comes to available produce.

Temperatures remained high in September and early October and the first frost has been delayed, The Washington Post reported. That means locally grown green peppers and sweet corn are still available at farmers' markets while apples and pumpkins are also for sale.

Three children and a woman were killed when their boat capsized in Honduras, officials said Sunday, raising to 21 the death toll from days of torrential rains that have driven thousands from their homes across Central America.

NOAA forecasters are calling for above-average temperatures over most of the country and a continuation of drier-than-average conditions across already drought-stricken parts of the Southwest and Southeast in its winter outlook for the United States, announced at the 2007-2008 Winter Fuels Outlook Conference in Washington, D.C October 9, 2007.

They are seeing more warm and dry weather in our near future.

The latest Drought Monitor puts Chattanooga right in the middle of the worst drought conditions in the country.

The Climate Prediction Center says it doesn't look good for the next three months.

While things could improve in other parts of Tennessee.. Alabama and Georgia... Our drought should hold on or even get worse.

Drought and extreme heat this summer cost Limestone County farmers millions of dollars and all but destroyed the 47,000-acre cotton crop, experts say.

The director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) has declared a Level 4 drought response across the northern third of Georgia, which prohibits most types of outdoor residential water use effective immediately.

"The drought of 2007 has reached historic proportions, so it's critical that we take immediate action to ensure that Georgians have a sufficientsupply of safe drinking water," said EPD Director Carol A. Couch. "All of the counties included in the level four declaration are located in areas of either exceptional or extreme drought."

The cholera epidemic is expected to spread and intensify in the upcoming two months, the health ministry's general inquisitor told the Iraqi parliament on Wednesday, local sources reported. The health ministry official, Adel Mohsen, was quoted by Voices of Iraq news agency as saying that the ministry is incapable of containing the epidemic due to a lack of chlorine dioxide, a chemical with disinfectant properties used to clean water.

Contaminated water sources have been blamed for the cholera cases.

A subtropical or tropical cyclone could form over the eastern Gulf of Mexico over the next day or so and threaten the oil and natural gas production facilities in the northern Gulf later in the week.

Officials coping with a severe drought in eastern Alabama and western Georgia issued sweeping bans Friday on outdoor watering and scrambled to secure a dwindling supply of drinking water to more than 50,000 people.

Divers went into Lake Martin looking for ways to increase the depth around intake pipes that drain water from the massive lake into the water system for Alexander City, 44 miles northeast of Montgomery on the Georgia line. Lake Martin is the only source of water for the Alexander City system.

The record-breaking volunteer response to a storm that caused unprecedented damage at Mount Rainier National Park saved the park an estimated $1.2 million and expedited reopening certain areas, park officials say.

About 1,500 volunteers from all over the world contributed 67,000 hours rebuilding trails, bridges and campsites since a November storm.

The 93-mile Wonderland Trail, which encircles the 14,410-foot mountain, finally has been reconnected, as have other trails previously impassable because of mudslides, washed-out bridges, fallen trees and debris. Campgrounds are cleaned up and will stay open until Oct. 9.

Meanwhile, state Route 123, closed all summer, reopened Friday at noon. Carbon River Road reopened a week ago to hikers and bicyclists only. The main road to park headquarters at Longmire was completely rebuilt in sections destroyed by the Nisqually River.

It was walking across the span on Highway 40 near Donner Summit in the Sierra Nevada when at least two oncoming cars spooked it, causing it to jump over the railing.

At one point it was dangling over the edge of the 80-foot-high bridge, but it caught a ledge and pulled itself onto a concrete girder beneath the bridge.

Statewide, it was the driest on record from January through August, according to federal weather data. The U.S. Drought Monitor rates central and north Alabama as being in an exceptional drought, the worst ranking given by the federal agency. The area of exceptional drought, which has expanded into some neighboring states, is the only one in the country with that ranking.
Looking back on his 14 years as cotton specialist at Auburn University, Dr. Dale Monks said Friday that "this is the most difficult year we've had." Because of the drought, he said, the fiber quality also is low and that will reduce prices for the crop.

"When you heat the planet, you increase the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture," said Benjamin Santer, lead author from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Program for Climate Modeling and Intercomparison. "The atmosphere's water vapor content has increased by about 0.41 kilograms per square meter (kg/m²) per decade since 1988, and natural variability in climate just can't explain this moisture change. The most plausible explanation is that it's due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases."

More water vapor – which is itself a greenhouse gas – amplifies the warming effect of increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. This is what scientists call a "positive feedback."

More than 100 Orange County firefighters have been deployed to help in fighting wildfires that have blazed through tens of thousands of acres and forced the evacuation of nearly 2,000 people in San Bernardino and San Diego counties.

Five Orange County "strike teams" as well as support staff from both the county fire agency and city fire departments in Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Orange, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Laguna Beach, Fullerton, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach have joined the effort to contain blazes in the San Bernardino National Forest near Big Bear as well as near the town of Julian in San Diego County, according to OC Fire Authority spokesman Cpt. Stephen Miller.

Two Croatian firefighters died overnight from burns suffered while battling to control an Adriatic island wildfire, the state-run HINA news agency said Thursday.

The latest deaths take to 11 the total number of local firemen to have lost their lives since the blaze broke out on Kornat island a week ago, said HINA, quoting the health ministry.

Notice lately that the price of bread, or even your favorite cookie, is jumping?

Well, you can partially thank everything from fears of bad weather in Australia to the improving dietary habits in China, both of which are among factors that drove the price of wheat to another record Wednesday.

Wheat is, of course, a key ingredient in baked goods, though some would argue it's a relatively small component in setting the retail price for, say, a box of crackers. Still, bread prices appear to be rising in 2007 at levels not seen in this decade.

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Wheat futures bolted to fresh record highs Tuesday and closed limit-up in many contracts amid fears that drought may slash Australian production for the second year in a row, analysts said.

Unexpectedly large purchases from India also boosted wheat prices, analysts said.

Nearby Chicago Board of Trade September wheat traded as much as 43 cents higher during the day session and set an all-time high of $8.10 a bushel. That exceeded the previous intraday high of $8.05 a bushel. The contract, exempt from the typical 30-cent trading limit because it is in delivery, closed up 40 cents at $8.07 a bushel.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A heat wave swept southern California for a sixth day on Sunday, claiming the lives of an elderly couple, setting record temperatures and leaving thousands of customers without power.

The mercury eclipsed the century mark throughout the area, sending millions of people to the beaches for relief on the Labor Day holiday. Weather forecasters expect more harsh conditions on Tuesday, but a slight cooling though the week.

In downtown Los Angeles, the temperature reached 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37 C), and set records along the coast in Long Beach (103 degrees/39 C) and 56 miles inland in Riverside (112 degrees/44 C).

Hurricane Felix has formed in the Eastern Caribbean with sustained winds of 75mph and a central pressure of 993mb.

I think it is interesting to note the similarities between Felix and Dean. The intensity predictions and track forecasts are extremely similar. Were I on the Yucatan's Eastern coast I would be very concerned.

Have a look at the historical tracks for Dean and the current one for Felix (click to enlarge):

August 2007 shattered heat records across North Carolina, said Ryan P. Boyles, the state climatologist.

"It is going to go down as one of the warmest, if not the warmest, across most of the state," Boyles said. "And it is going to go down as one of the driest, if not the driest."

It was the the hottest month ever for Raleigh and Durham and Greensboro, Boyles said. That is according to the average mean temperature for the month, a measurement that weather folks typically use to make comparisons, Boyles added.

This year, as of Friday morning, August's average mean temperature in Fayetteville was 85.3 degrees. That shattered the previous record of 83.2 that had held since 1900.

Barring any extreme and highly unlikely cool-down today, this August will end up by far the warmest on record for Memphis.

Through midnight Tuesday, the average daily high temperature for the month was a scorching 99.1 degrees

-- considerably higher than the previous record of 97.6 set in 1980.

The average temperature of 88.6 degrees was tracking well above the previous mark of 87.2 recorded in 1980.

The list of records set during the month doesn't end with temperatures.

Unless you spent the last month in a cave without television, internet, fax, phone or paper, you know it's been extremely hot. But did you know that in the 130+ years of record keeping, no month was hotter than the one we just experienced here in Louisville?

The heat was a constant. The first 20 days of August featured temperatures at or above 90 degrees, and most days were well above 90. Ten times the mercury topped out at 99 degrees or higher. Five times we topped out above 100! The records kept falling like a steady drum beat. No less than 11 record temperatures were tied or set, including a 105-degree reading set on the 16, which was good for the hottest temperature ever recorded during the month of August!

The average high temperature for the month turned out to be 96 degrees, while the average low was 74. Add these two numbers together and divide by two to get the mean temperature for the month. That mean temperature turns out to be 85.0 degrees. Exactly two degrees higher than the previous highest ever recorded for the month of August! It wasn't just the hottest August, however, it was also the hottest month ever recorded in Louisville. To put this into perspective, the previous record was a mean temperature of 84.2 degrees set 106 years ago during July 1901 -- wow!

When a long jump or pole vault record is broken in the Olympics, it usually happens by a fraction of an inch. When a record falls in a running event, it is often by a tenth of a second.

Imagine if a long jumper or pole vaulter sailed a foot past the old mark, or a sprinter raced through the tape two seconds faster than anyone before.

August 2007 is that kind of massive record-breaker in Roanoke's weather history. You have just lived through the hottest month in nearly 60 years of official weather records -- and second place isn't close.

The Pentagon has said it will deploy troops to Basra if necessary to fill the vacuum left by a British withdrawal.

Brig Gen Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning at the Pentagon, was adamant US forces would not allow any security advances in southern Iraq to be squandered, even if it meant running the risk of weakening American efforts elsewhere in the country.

Ranchers already struggling with severe drought are donating hay to help their counterparts in central Utah, where wild fires have burned 500,000 of acres of grazing lands.
Tens of thousands of cattle have been forced off burned out ranges - increasing feed costs by nearly six times. State agriculture officials estimate that the bill for 38,500 tons of needed hay will top $3.8 million.
"It's going to take a lot of hay to help these people out," said Cache County rancher Joe Fuhriman. "If anyone can spare a little bit, it'll make a difference."
Fuhriman has donated one ton of hay - and he's challenging others to do the same. So far, farmers have pledged 30 tons. Fuhriman is confident that by mid September, they'll have enough to fill a semitrailer truckload or two. About 1,600 truckloads of hay are needed, say state and federal officials
Ranchers' largess comes at a time when all 29 counties have been declared disaster areas - a designation stemming from wildfires, severe drought, insect infestations, killing frosts and flash flooding. The declaration qualifies farmers for low-interest loans.

More than 60 people have died because of a fever epidemic in the centre of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, health officials say.

Many of the victims are people who have been in contact with the deceased, including medical staff, and who lack equipment to deal with the illness.

The latest victim was a nurse at a local hospital. She died on Thursday after taking care of infected patients.

Commissioner for Agriculture and Industries Ron Sparks addressed the Rotary Club Thursday discussing the drought, state policy making food imports safer and the state's role in the growing field of alternative fuels.

This year Alabama is going through its worst drought on record.

"We've got some farmers that have lost not only one crop but two crops."

According to Sparks, March had abnormally high temperatures putting peach and wheat crops on a fast track. Farmers thought they were going to be able to make up this year what they lost last year, he said. But the freeze in April devastated fruit and wheat crops.

Following that, farmers planted crops but drought set in. In late July, badly needed rain fell so farmers planted cotton hoping to make one of the best yields on record.

According to Sparks, those crops dried up due to "the longest period of triple digit temperatures that we've had in the history of this state."

Sparks said a disaster bill needs to be passed in Washington, D.C.

"If we don't get a disaster package to help our farmers in Alabama this year, there should never be a disaster package to help any farmer in the United States from now on," he said. "The whole state of Alabama is burnt up."

Low river levels brought on by the drought have forced one paper company in Monroe County to use pumps on a barge to supply water to the mill and another in Prattville to store wastewater in ponds instead of discharging it into the Alabama River.

Officials at Alabama River Pulp Co. near Perdue Hill said the pumping operation was needed because the river had fallen below 7 feet.

"We are currently operating at levels at which we have never operated before," said Pete Black, Alabama River Pulp's general manager.

As an update for those interested, there is a tropical wave would looks to be developing on its way to the Caribbean. Convection has deepened today and it is starting to look better organized, possibly with a closed circulation.

A federal appeals court has put on hold a lower court injunction blocking the U.S. Navy from using a type of sonar that wildlife supporters say harms whales in exercises off the California coast.

Earlier this month the Natural Resources Defense Council won a federal court's preliminary injunction against Navy tests using mid-frequency active sonar to detect underwater objects like submarines.

In its Friday opinion, a split three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the lower court had considered only the fate of the whales while ignoring American defense needs.

"The public does indeed have a very considerable interest in preserving our natural environment and especially relatively scarce whales," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote. "But it also has an interest in national defense. We are currently engaged in war, in two countries."

Experts studying an Aug. 6 Utah coal mine collapse that trapped six miners say "all of the evidence" indicates the collapse was not caused by an earthquake.

Douglas Dreger, associate professor of geophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, said analysis of seismic readings from the collapse and the Aug. 16 blowout of the mine walls that killed three rescuers supports the conclusion that the collapse was caused by the mine itself, USA Today reported Wednesday.

Fire crews saw conditions unexpectedly worsen on Tuesday, with gusty winds pushing a wildfire closer to Sun Valley Resort's ski area and forcing hundreds more homes to be evacuated in the valley below.

The fire has burned more than 64 square miles of spruce, fir and pine trees, keeping crews busy near a summit lodge adorned with fading pictures of Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper and Tyrone Power, past visitors to the ski area founded in 1936.

Amid the smoke, managers opted to run ski lifts — not for people, but to keep errant flames from cooking cables that ferry more than 200,000 visitors up the slopes each winter.

A man died over the weekend at a wind farm under construction in Oregon in what is believed to be the first death of a wind power worker from a tower collapse in the United States, law enforcement and industry officials said on Monday.

Chadd Mitchell, 35, was killed on Saturday afternoon when a 242-foot-tall tower he was working on toppled over, said a dispatcher for the Sherman County Sheriff's Department.

US President George Bush is to honour those who have "dedicated their lives to the renewal of New Orleans", two years after Hurricane Katrina.

"We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild," the president said.

He is due to attend a memorial service in New Orleans and make a speech on the city's reconstruction efforts, before travelling to Mississippi.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us," the comic-strip character Pogo said decades ago. A new analysis of last year's near-record temperatures in the United States suggests he was right.

Warming caused by human activity was the biggest factor in the high temperatures recorded in 2006, according to a report by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The analysis, released Tuesday, is being published in the September issue of Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.

In January, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported that 2006 was the warmest year on record over the 48 contiguous states with an average temperature 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal and 0.07 degree warmer than 1998, the previous warmest year on record.

NOAA hydrologists indicate that Lake Superior is nearing record lows for the month of August, a trend that if continued could break past record lows for the months of September and October. NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory is able to forecast lake levels 12 months in advance using current hydrological conditions combined with NOAA's long-term climate outlooks.

"Lake Superior is less than six centimeters higher than its August record low of 182.97 meters which was set in 1926, and it looks as though the water levels may continue to plunge," said Cynthia Sellinger, deputy director of NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.

''The bottom line is you've turned these firefighters, these highly trained and experienced firefighters . . . into a very expensive maintenance crew,'' said Jim Smalley, manager of Firewise, a national program that educates homeowners on how to protect their property from wildfires.
Most homeowners in Idaho's fire-prone communities have not taken steps such as clearing trees and brush around their homes to protect their property, said David Olson, a spokesman with the Boise National Forest who has more than 30 years experience in wildland firefighting.

Two weeks back, Erin can be seen coming up from the Gulf.
Most of the large red field is above 8 inches, the area covered is huge.

Precp. Page at NWS

The weeks-long heat wave that has baked the Southeast, South and Tennessee Valley is causing already extreme drought conditions to worsen.

Temperatures that easily climbed into the middle and upper 90s and even the triple-digits this past week are continuing to wilt corn, cotton and fruit crops throughout the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky. Farmers throughout these regions are expecting some of the worst crop yields in decades.

The 100-plus degree heat and the rainfall shortage this month has caused drought conditions so bad that they usually don't occur more than once a century.

The state climatologist said Thursday that drought in 70 of Georgia's 159 counties — almost half — has now been classified as "exceptional."

Near a rock formation twisting into the Arizona sky, the desert floor has been torn up by off-road vehicles. A tattered VCR and a bullet-riddled washing machine further scar the landscape.

Tonto is one of many national forests that suffer environmental damage caused by thoughtless, even unscrupulous, visitors.

And the U.S. Forest Service doesn't have the cash or manpower to tackle the problem. The agency's spending this year has yet to be calculated, but its proposed budget represented a 2.5 percent drop in funding, said spokeswoman Angela Coleman.

The Bush administration wants to quit requiring coal operators to prove that their surface mining will not damage streams, fish and wildlife.

Under proposed new regulations being issued Friday for public comment, strip mine operators would have to show only that they intend "to prevent, to the extent possible using the best technology currently available," such damage.

Ben Owens, a spokesman for the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining, said Thursday that the proposed changes are intended to clear up "confusion regarding the requirements pertinent to mining in and around streams."

The Bush administration wants to quit requiring coal operators to prove that their surface mining will not damage streams, fish and wildlife.

Under proposed new regulations being issued Friday for public comment, strip mine operators would have to show only that they intend "to prevent, to the extent possible using the best technology currently available," such damage.

Ben Owens, a spokesman for the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining, said Thursday that the proposed changes are intended to clear up "confusion regarding the requirements pertinent to mining in and around streams."

"We've had persistent, ongoing, relentless precipitation pretty much all year," Murphy told AFP.

"It's our wettest year on record so far... dating back to 1895."

Meanwhile, a crippling heat wave brought death and drought to the south eastern states of Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

Thirteen deaths were reported in Memphis, Tennessee and a dozen were reported in Alabama, officials said.

"These are a hundred year-plus records that are being shattered," Murphy said.

One such record was in Athens, Georgia which has had 13 days this month with temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to an average of one day a year in August.

"That's a tremendous climatologically extreme event," Murphy said.

Birmingham, Alabama broke records with 10 consecutive days of temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), up from the previous record of eight days in the deadly heat wave of 1980.

Drought conditions are so severe that the town of Franklin has begun shutting off water service to homes which violate water restrictions and is considering banning restaurants from serving water to customers who don't specifically ask for it, the Tennessean newspaper reported.

State health officials said Tuesday that 10 heat-related deaths have been recorded in Alabama this month and urged people to continue to use caution as temperatures remain high.

State health officer Don Williamson said there is a risk that people will think the danger has passed since temperatures have dipped slightly during the past few days.

"I think the fact that we have not been in triple digits for the last few days may make people think it's over, but we still have a heat index reaching 105, and it's still not getting below 75 at night," he said.

It just keeps getting worse. First there was the late freeze, then the drought, and now a killer heat wave said to be responsible for 49 deaths is taking a further toll on crops. Here's a roundup...

Heat, drought take toll on N.E. Mississippi crops:

[Farmer Doug] Mitchell said this year's drought and heat are the worst since his father started the farm in 1963. The farm has received less than 20 inches of rain this year. And, the average high temperature for August has been 101 degrees.

"What we thought was going to be a record soybean crop three weeks ago, now we might not even be having one," said [Charlie Stokes, an area agronomy agent with the Mississippi State University Extension Service], who is responsible for eight Northeast Mississippi counties. "It's gotten pretty bad."

"Once we got here, everybody asked us to rescue more people," he said.

The Blanchard River was 7 feet above flood stage Wednesday at Findlay, the highest since a 1913 flood, and could rise another half-foot or more, the National Weather Service said.

The rain subsided by mid-afternoon, and the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for much of the state, with temperatures expected to hit the upper 90s.

In Bucyrus, 40 miles to the southeast, nearly 9 inches of rain had fallen since Monday and at least 200 people were still out of their homes, the Crawford County Department of Emergency Management said.

"Reality is starting to set in about just how much damage there is in some of the flooded areas," said Tim Flock, director of the agency.

Gov. Ted Strickland declared states of emergency in nine counties in northwest and north-central Ohio, including Crawford County and Findlay's Hancock County.

Macon County and Middle Tennessee may break a number of drought and heat records in the period June through August 2007, if current trends persist through the end of the month.

On track to be the driest year since 1954, the region recently broke the 1988 record for the number of consecutive days (20 and counting) for the temperature to rise above 95 degrees.

The past week saw the hottest day of the year, with 105 degrees recorded in Lafayette on Thursday, August 16.

Less than four inches of rain have been recorded thus far in our region during the months June-August. A little more than 4 inches fell during this same period in 1954.

Already a killer storm, Dean strengthened into a "potentially catastrophic" category five hurricane just hours before it was expected to slam Mexico's Caribbean coast early Tuesday.

A US Navy reserve hurricane hunter plane that flew into the monstrous weather system late Monday recorded maximum sustained winds of 256 kilometers (160 miles) per hour, with higher gusts.

That makes Dean "a potentially catastrophic category five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale," the Miami-based US National Weather Center said.

An invasive mussel that made its way west of the Rocky Mountains seven months ago is spreading rapidly, just the scenario most feared by officials running water systems supplying millions of people across the Southwest.

The thumb-sized quagga mussels, which can clog pipes and gum up waterworks, have already been discovered in lakes Mead, Havasu and Mojave on the Colorado River and in two major aqueducts that supply water to Southern California and Arizona.

Officials announced this month that they had also found tiny quagga larvae in Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, although no adults have yet been found. Most interior lakes have staved off infestations — for the time being.

Experts warned that the heat and extended drought conditions could mean an early start to the fire season, which usually doesn't begin until October.

Leaves of some species of trees have already begun to brown and drop to the ground as trees suffer continued stress from the recent extreme weather that has blanketed the South coupled with April's late freeze. That will create wildfire conditions during the closing weeks of summer.

"There's going to be a lot of flammable material out there," said Tim Phelps, Tennessee Department of Agriculture information and education program specialist.

A 350-home subdivision was evacuated because of a wildfire that destroyed two houses, with more homes threatened by flames that reached the decks of some, officials said Monday.

Resident Kelsey Ebinger said she and her brother drove out the rear entrance of the subdivision in a convoy of about 60 cars because the main entrance was blocked by the 1,000-acre fire reported Sunday.

"People were getting so panicked, they were going 60 mph, but there was no way you could outrun it," said Ebinger, 19.

William Rash, chief of the Lockwood Fire Department, said crews fought flames "right up to the back door" of some homes.

Gusty wind and low humidity helped flames spread elsewhere in western Montana, prompting more evacuations at several blazes, including one near Seeley Lake that had destroyed one hours and damaged several others.

A two-week heatwave in the southern and Midwestern US has resulted in the deaths of at least 43 people, many of whom were elderly, officials have said.

On Sunday, temperatures dropped to 94F (34C) in Memphis, Tennessee - the first time in 10 days they did not top 100F.

Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, South Carolina and Mississippi have also been affected.

2:00PM EDT Update: The latest advisory from NHC maintains Dean with winds of 150 mph and a central pressure of 930 mb. Also just in, the latest TRMM satellite pass went directly over Dean. What luck! Unsurprisingly it is showing some very well developed banding wrapping around Dean's circulation. While there is no "double eyewall" yet, I expect that by this time tomorrow we'll be dealing with an eyewall replacement cycle and a storm with two radial wind maxima.

TVA put an exclamation point after the worst heat wave in North Alabama history with its announcement Thursday that it would temporarily hike rates.

Between October and December, Tennessee Valley Authority will bump electricity costs up by .432 cents per kilowatt hour, which it said will add between $3 and $6 to the typical bill for residential consumers.

The announcement comes as demand for electricity, largely to keep homes cool, is at an all-time high. Temperatures soared Thursday, topping 104 degrees and marking the ninth consecutive day of triple-digit heat.

That ties a record for most consecutive days above 100 degrees set in 1935, according to the National Weather Service in Huntsville. It also beat the record for the warmest Aug. 16, which was recorded at 101 in 1954.

Friday's high temperature is predicted at 99 degrees, but a NWS forecaster said it could reach 100.

Hurricane Dean roared into the eastern Caribbean on Friday, tearing away roofs, flooding streets and causing at least three deaths on small islands as the powerful storm headed on a collision course with Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

By mid-evening, the Atlantic season's first hurricane had strengthened into a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 135 mph after crossing over the warm waters of the Caribbean and forecasters warned it could grow into a monster tempest with 150 mph winds before steering next week into the Gulf of Mexico, with its 4,000 oil and gas platforms.

What with Erin coming onshore in Texas .... Radar Loop out of Corpus Christi, and Dean warming up in the wings. It's time to point folks to the best place on the web to watch the Atlantic Hurricane season . It's the site that Matt Drudge grabs for those killer model projections. Some guys out of Penn State, but Bryan Woods is the spark plug. So bookmark the link because here it comes :

Storm Track

August 13, 2007

Large fire activity continues to increase, especially in Montana and Idaho, where 31 large fires are burning more than 780,000 acres. Fire managers are concerned about sustained winds of 15-20 miles per hour throughout the Great Basin and Northern Rockies.

We are about to pass 2006 has the worst season ever on a day by day basis. Last year at this date there were 5,954,944 acres burned. 2007 is at 5,590,643. Just 364,000 acres. This number is shrinking . The most interesting thing is we're way down on the total number of fires.

2006 - 73,661
2007 - 59,836

Heavy rains in the middle of the country.

The Interagency Fire Center Fire Information - National Fire News

Little over one week into August and the already-busy wildfire season is set to get even busier as continued dry conditions across the West set the stage for large, intense and long-lasting wildfires. The nation's highest priority region remains the Northern Rockies Area where 11 large fires burn in Idaho and 13 in Montana. Currently, the top five priority fires—the Tin Cup, Jocko Lakes, Chippy Creek, Sawmill and Skyland Fires—are all burning in the Big Sky State.

This week, 10 Montana counties and the Blackfeet Nation fell under emergency declarations due to wildfires with three counties under disaster declarations. Officials evacuated several hundred homes throughout the week across western Montana. In Idaho, six counties are under disaster declarations.

August is typically the hottest, driest and busiest fire month in this region, but an existing drought and a trend of earlier, warmer springs resulted in mountain snow running off three weeks earlier than normal this year. The drought and earlier springs are combining with sustained above-average temperatures to create a longer fire season and some of the most extreme fire danger in history, according to the Northern Rockies Coordination Center (NRCC).

'Undeniable' numbers
Nationwide, total rainfall and snowfall increased by about 7 percent during the 20th century, and the precipitation falling in the heaviest 1 percent of storms increased by 20 percent, said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch at National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.

"It is undeniable that the heavy precipitation events that create flash flooding are becoming more common," Lawrimore said.

Climate scientists generally measure weather changes in decades or centuries, not years, and across vast regions, not individual cities.

Antarctica lost much more ice to the sea than it gained from snowfall according to a NASA survey done between 1992 and 2002. It also had a corresponding rise in sea level. The survey documented for the first time extensive thinning of the West Antarctic ice shelves. Credit: NASA/SVS

NASA (The US National Aeronautical and Space Administration) and Columbia University Earth Institute research finds that human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth's climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet.

From a combination of climate models, satellite data, and paleoclimate records the scientists conclude that the West Antarctic ice sheet, Arctic ice cover, and regions providing fresh water sources and species habitat are under threat from continued global warming. The research appears in the current issue of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

In the weeks following the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia in 2006, the owner of the Utah mine where six workers remained trapped underground Tuesday called state efforts to pass stricter mine safety laws "seriously flawed, knee-jerk" reactions.

"I resent these politicians playing politics with my employees' safety," Robert E. Murray told the Columbus Dispatch in January 2006.

Murray was responding to a proposal in the Ohio legislature that would have created a mining emergency operations center and required workers to wear wireless communications devices.

Since critical thinking skills have been completely abandoned by the right wing in this country We are treated to more of this, what I'll call "Talk Radio Science".

Tonight on CNN the owner of the mine in Utah with 6 trapped miners, Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, said that the collapse of his mine was because of an earthquake 5 miles deep, and he said that this was straight from the USGS. He also said :

"Efforts to reach six men trapped in a collapsed coal mine in Utah were "wiped out" Tuesday by what the mine operator's CEO called continuing "seismic and tectonic activity."

Well here's the USGS page for this event : Magnitude 3.9 - UTAH.

Notice the depth of the activity, 1 mile.

Notice here that there are no other events in this area, just the one the day the roof came down on these men.
Click Here

This is what happens when the only science the right wing knows comes from Talk Radio.

Some more stinking stuff from this fellow :

In the weeks following the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia in 2006, the owner of the Utah mine where six workers remained trapped underground Tuesday called state efforts to pass stricter mine safety laws "seriously flawed, knee-jerk" reactions.

Murray was responding to a proposal in the Ohio legislature that would have created a mining emergency operations center and required workers to wear wireless communications devices.

No wonder this guy is trying to spin this roof collapse, he's a real piece of work.

The world experienced a series of record-breaking weather events in early 2007, from flooding in Asia to heatwaves in Europe and snowfall in South Africa, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said global land surface temperatures in January and April were likely the warmest since records began in 1880, at more than 1 degree Celsius higher than average for those months.

There have also been severe monsoon floods across South Asia, abnormally heavy rains in northern Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay, extreme heatwaves in southeastern Europe and Russia, and unusual snowfall in South Africa and South America this year, the WMO said.

Beaches across the country closed or posted warnings to swimmers a record number of times last year because of high levels of harmful bacteria, evidence that communities should do more to keep vacation beaches clean and safe, according to a national environmental group.

The Natural Resources Defense Council's annual "Testing the Waters" guide portrays the nation's favorite beaches as increasingly susceptible to contamination from storm water runoff, sewage spills and other sources of pollution.

"We are still not doing everything possible to protect the public," said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC's Clean Water Project. "Pollutants continue to foul our waters, threatening human and ecological health."

While the nation's top priority fire, the Jocko Lakes Fire near Seeley Lake calmed Monday, winds hit blazes in the Bitterroot Valley, pushing the Tin Cup Fire near Darby to the south, forcing the evacuation of about 36 homes.

The National Weather Service in Missoula had issued a red flag warning for Monday with gusts up to 40 mph expected.

A state of emergency was declared in Montana because of several large wildfires, including one that has crept to within a mile of several homes and destroyed at least one.

Higher humidity and clouds on Sunday were helping firefighters contain that nearly 28-square-mile blaze, which began Friday and rapidly grew, leading to evacuation orders for residents of about 200 homes.

Nearly 25 million people have been displaced by flooding and 1,400 killed in South Asia as the worst monsoon rains to hit the region in decades continued to wreak havoc on Saturday.

Northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal are the worst affected according to officials dealing with the crisis, with many people falling victim to disease.

In India alone, the number of dead topped 1,100 by late Friday, the United Nations' child welfare agency said in a statement.

Saboteurs who blew up natural gas pipelines that shut down one of Mexico's main industrial regions earlier this month also crippled an important crude oil pipeline in an operation that indicated extensive knowledge of Mexico's energy infrastructure, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Not only were oil and natural gas pipelines targeted, but the bombers also knew enough about energy installations to destroy the shutoff valves along several pipelines that allow for the wide national distribution of oil and natural gas.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Clean-up crews on Monday started mopping up 3,500 gallons of diesel fuel that spilled in wildlife-rich Prince William Sound when a fishing vessel grounded there, state environmental officials said.

Fuel from the Nordic Viking, which grounded Saturday night, had reached an island used as a resting place for seals and was coating an unknown amount of shoreline, but officials had yet to find dead or injured animals, said John Brown at the state Department of Environmental Conservation. A cleanup could take weeks, he said.

CEDAR CITY - The largest wildfire in Utah history is completely contained.
Jim Springer, fire information officer with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, this afternoon that the Milford Flat blaze, which scorched more than 363,000 acres or roughly 550 square miles in Beaver and Millard counties since lightning sparked it July 6, probably will be turned over to a smaller management team by Tuesday.
The Neola North fire, which started June 29, was more than 80 percent contained today. Officials are discussing whether to let the rest of the blaze burn to clear out undergrowth and downed timber in forest lands.

For fans of Internet radio, it's all about the sound. The sound of old songs that they love. The sound of new music they can't get anywhere else.

The problem is that ticking sound.

Time is running out on free online music after a federal panel in March ordered drastic increases in royalty fees paid to compensate performers and record companies.

Many Webcasters -- the Internet disc jockeys who stream their favorite music around the world -- said the new rates, which were to go into effect today and were to be retroactive to January 2006, would force them to pull the plug on their operations. Hundreds of small Webcasters already have shut down.

Predictions made by fire officials in May that Utah could experience major wildfires this season are coming true.
"It's looking that way now," said Utah Interagency Fire spokeswoman Kathy Jo Pollock. "This last week has been extremely busy."
To date, 461 wildfires have burned 452,419 acres in Utah, said National Interagency Fire Center spokesman Don Smuthwaite.
That's compared to 322 wildfires in Nevada that have consumed 134,142 acres and 574 fires in Colorado that have blackened 6,241 acres.
In Idaho, 385 fires have burned 155,044 acres, and Oregon has had 606 fires across 78,205 acres. Even California, which typically burns more acreage, is at 4,114 fires but only 103,094 acres.
"Looks like in the West, you're No. 1," Smuthwaite said. "Let's hope the season moderates soon in the Beehive State."

KANOSH - Fire managers faced new pressures Tuesday as more blazes sprouted over the West and the massive Milford Flat fire continued to burn largely uncontrolled.
"Resources are becoming sparse across the nation," said Rowdy Muir, incident commander overseeing the 311,000-acre blaze.
The Milford Flat fire stretches about 55 miles south-to-north and about 40 east-to-west. Overnight Monday, a new finger formed in the northwestern tip of the fire and firefighters spent much of Tuesday bulldozing a line on the southeastern tip that they hoped would keep the fire from crossing I-15 between Sulphurdale and Manderfield.

KANOSH - The enormous Milford Flat fire grew slightly on Monday as 200 more firefighters arrived and began combating the wind-whipped inferno that had scorched 469 square miles of pinyon pine, juniper, sagebrush, farmland and cattle range in four days.
The winds were lighter than in previous days and the Milford Flat fire - the largest in recorded Utah history - grew by only a small percentage to a total of about 300,000 acres. It did not advance on any communities and no evacuations were under way as of Monday night, nor were any injuries reported

Weeks into a wildfire season that has already burned parts of Catalina Island, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe, swaths of California's flammable national forests are some days protected by nothing more than luck.

On any given day, about 40 of 271 U.S. Forest Service engines remain in firehouses rather than on patrol, idled by a shortage of supervisors. Meanwhile, the combined effects of sustained drought, last winter's freeze and a searing heat wave has dramatically raised fire danger levels this season.

The Milford Flat fire has grown to historic proportions.
At 283,000 acres, the blaze is the largest wildfire ever in Utah and is rivaling some of the largest recent wildfires in the entire nation.
The only recorded Utah fire to come close began almost exactly 24 years ago near Dugway, where a cheat-grass fire swept across 250,000 acres, The Salt Lake Tribune archives show.

One person killed Sunday by a wildfire raging in the midwestern state of South Dakota, as extreme heat and drought conditions created tinderbox conditions in parts of the western United States.

Firefighters were battling to quell the blaze near Hot Springs in Alabaugh, South Dakota, which also injured two firefighters and has incinerated about 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares), officials said.

Meanwhile, fire-related evacuations were underway in Utah and Idaho, while firefighters battled blazes in several states including Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico.

FILLMORE, Utah (CNN) -- Firefighters struggled to gain control of a massive wildfire in Utah on Sunday -- just one of about a dozen fires blazing throughout the western United States.
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The Milford Flat fire burns around Interstate 15 near the Interstate 80 interchange Sunday.
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The Milford Flat fire in western Utah grew to more than 282,000 acres Sunday, making it the largest fire in the state's recorded history, officials told CNN affiliate KSL-TV.

"I don't know what to compare it to," said Susan Marzec, an official with the state's Bureau of Land Management.

Earlier in the day, the fire was reported at about 160,000 acres.

"We're fast approaching 300,000 acres, if we're not already there," Mike Melton, fire management officer for Utah's Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, told KSL. "I was on the initial attack of this fire in the air, and this fire just ran away from us. We couldn't put a dent in it."

As the post-party clean up begins, organizers of this weekend's Live Earth concerts are calling the global series the biggest musical event every staged.

The 24-hour music marathon featured 100 of the biggest names in music and spanned seven continents with an estimated worldwide television audience of 2 billion.

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (Reuters) - The Live Earth global pop concerts on Saturday broke a record for an online entertainment show by generating more than 9 million Internet streams, Microsoft Corp. Web portal MSN said.

As the last two of the nine Live Earth concerts got underway, MSN product manager Karin Muskopf said the number of streams had surpassed the previous record held by 2005's Live 8 global concerts to fight poverty.

The biggest concern was at Lake Texoma along the Oklahoma-Texas border, where water was projected to spill over the Denison Dam on Thursday, said Bryan County Emergency Management Director James Dalton.

"[We're] warning residents along the Red River to move all livestock, equipment and other necessary belongings to higher ground," Dalton said. "We are also urging residents to have an initial evacuation plan, should conditions threaten homes in the area."

LOS ANGELES -- A heat wave sizzling across the West showed little sign of letting up Thursday, with Las Vegas forecast to tie a record high and even northern Idaho expected to top 100 degrees.

"You can become dehydrated really quick before you know it. You step outside and, 'wow,'" said Charlie Schlott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Las Vegas.

NEW ORLEANS - The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet
President Bush's promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
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The 2006 hurricane season turned out to be mild, and the new pumps were never pressed into action. But the Corps and the politically connected manufacturer of the equipment are still struggling to get the 34 heavy-duty pumps working properly

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush asked Congress to revise his emergency spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to pay for as many as 4,400 more troops to support the deployment of additional combat forces.